


Talk to Me, Baby

by atbunda



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Comedy, Crack, Fluff, M/M, Why Did I Write This?, mentions of lunberstal, mentions of taekai, only if you read with a very ironic tone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atbunda/pseuds/atbunda
Summary: The things that a person draws or writes on their body (usually) reflects on their soulmate’s skin on the same place. The only rule is; you can’t write any information that obviously is a direct attempt at communication. Well you can, but it just doesn’t reflect on the soulmate’s body.Torturous really. There’s no easy way to find someone you’re “meant to be with”, unless you figure out a code that works and actually reflects on the skin of your soulmate(s).That’s especially true when you’re stuck with a person who thinks that they’re being thoughtful by sharing their “deep” lyrics by using a permanent marker on their own skin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of the lyrics!!! The first one is from Jonghyun's 'End of a Day' and the others are from 'Moon'
> 
> Revised on 05/08/17 so, sorry for the update thingy if it changed!

Soulmates are easy to love. Whatever love it is, either platonic or romantic. Soulmates are meant for each other, so why wouldn’t it be easy?

However, most people don’t even bother to begin the search for their meant-to-be (or whatever you want to call it).

Why you ask? Why wouldn’t people want to find their soulmate or soulmates if being with them was easier than with anyone else? The answer is, it’s too difficult. Not worth the trouble.

The human population is too large, most messages are late, some don’t ever come through.

You can always find someone else.

However, Kibum… Kibum is different.

He (unlike most people) wants to find his one and only.

His soulmate.

His _meant-to-be_.

Don’t get him wrong though, it isn’t that he harbours some kind of warm feelings for the other, it is quite the opposite actually.

Their bond being strong enough to be able to present most messages on Kibum’s skin has been the worst thing that could ever happen to him. Kibum cursed the day he realised he was getting regular “deep” messages and ever since then he wanted to meet the person behind all those writings. Kibum just wants tell them face-to-face what he thought about their shenanigans. He can’t just walk around everywhere with weird things on his wrist! It is ruining his _image_ (whatever that image is supposed to be).

“I can’t believe they used a permanent marker _again_ , to write _their_ nonsense on _my_ hand. I asked them not to do that it’s seriously annoying. How can such a disagreeable person be my soulmate?!” Kibum complains to Minho, when the words don’t come off of his wrist for the third day.

 “Well you know why I think he's perfect for you, but still, hear me out now, so I can tell you again--” Minho starts with a smirk.

“Nope! No! Shut up!” Kibum cuts him off rolling his eyes at his smile.

“But for real, though, maybe he’s not getting your messages.”

Minho knows Kibum well. Actually, they’ve been friends ever since they were college roommates and now they even work in the same company. Ever since Kibum’s soulmate’s writings started appearing on his skin nearly every day, though, lunchbreak has never been the same for Minho.

Despite Kibum’s complaints that he had to hear out every day when they went for lunch, however, Minho knew that his friend found the “deep” lines that appeared on his wrist so often, incredibly sweet.

“I’m still going to complain about this, though,” Minho hears Kibum mutter angrily, taking a sip of his frappe.

“I realised that after the first thousand times you said that,” Minho rolls his eyes, but he can’t help his smile widening.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Krystal is already cleaning up as Jonghyun plumps on the chair by the bar after his regular Friday performance and sighs. The bar smells like beer, peanuts and some kind of strong cleaner that Krystal’s spraying on the counter-top right now.

“Why do they never answer any of my lyrics? I mean, I’m always sure to make them last as long as I can, because maybe they don’t look at their wrist or something, but I haven’t got anything from them since like two years ago...”

Krystal suspected Jonghyun would talk about this again. He’s being doing that every week since he started performing here and it’s really getting on her nerves.

She understands. He’s a _romantic_. He just cannot not find his soulmate. They are, after all, supposed to be someone who are _meant to be_. Someone, who are supposed to be perfect for their soulmate.

“Maybe they’re not getting them. Or _you’re_ not getting their answers... _Or..._ wait for it... you pissed them off with your greasy self and they’ve just given up on you,” Krystal suggests, as has now become a regular thing, “Can you please stop asking that every time you’re here? It’s getting old.”

“Easy for you to say when you found both of your soulmates just when you got into college,” Jonghyun scoffs.

“Yeah, but it was because we were in the same class and Amber decided to draw a huge black dot in the middle of her forehead,” Krystal smiles, rather fondly, “for all you know, your soulmate could live on the other side of the world. In that case, they probably can’t even understand what you’re writing,” Krystal says matter-of-factly.

“No that’s definitely not the case. _Once_ some kind of memo of theirs came up on my hand and it was Korean and had an address here in Seoul. I went there but it was some kind of new clothes shop and I didn’t even know when they would come and I couldn’t exactly search the whole building either, so I decided to wait for something better.”

“So if they weren’t a tourist you narrowed it down to what? Ten million people? Seven, if we believe the reports that thirty percent of Seoul’s population has found their soulmates,” Krystal rolls her eyes, “besides it’s not like a relationship with your soulmate or soulmates is really meant to be. It’s just easier to start and maintain, it still doesn’t mean it’s forever.”

“Why do you have to repeat this litany every time we meet, though,” Jonghyun whines. He does feel kind of hurt by her words.

“Mostly because you never listen,” Krystal says plainly.

“And because Sunyoung and I don’t let her rant about the ‘soulmates aren’t that special’ thing at home anymore. It really brings us down you know…” Amber says, appearing out of nowhere and landing a light peck on Krystal’s cheek, “Come on we need to close up already, Sunyoung said she’ll be picking us up at 1 am.”

As Krystal and Amber are closing up, Jonghyun bids his goodbyes until next week and goes out of the bar.

The streets are still bustling with people, as you would expect on a Friday night. Jonghyun waves to Sunyoung, who’s standing by the side of her car, already waiting for Amber and Krystal, and heads for his apartment building.

Jonghyun likes to walk those few blocks. The warm street lamp lights are calming to him. Besides, it’s not like he can sleep on such a beautiful night, when there’s so much to think about.

Sometimes he thinks of the beauty of the night-time sky, even with the few stars that can actually be seen in this light polluted area.

Sometimes it’s the possible backstories of people, who occasionally walk past him.

Sometimes, it’s new lyrics.

But most of the time it’s his soulmate.

It’s probably a stupid thing to do, considering Jonghyun doesn’t even know who his soulmate is, but he’s a romantic. He’s always been like that. Jonghyun’s always imagined how they’d meet and what his soulmate would be like.

 _“Maybe they don’t see them, maybe the lyrics really won’t get through,”_ Jonghyun thinks.

This thought saddens him even more than all the other possibilities.

Out of pure habit he looks at his wrist. He always does it when he’s at his apartment door.

 

 

> **_Hold out your hand, wrap it around my neck_ **  
>  **A little below, massage my shoulders**  
>  **At the end of a tiring day, even if the sun has already come up**  
>  **I’m finally closing my eyes.**

 

Jonghyun’s eyes scan through the dimly lit lyrics he’s scribbled at four in the morning a few days ago, using a permanent marker, when his eyes stop right below the words, at something that wasn’t there the last time he looked.

 

 

>                       **Cute. But please no more permanent marker. Thanks.**

 

Jonghyun’s heart feels like it’ll jump out of his chest and he can feel his breathing speed up.

After almost two years of nothing, the words are clear as day. Sure, the blue ink is a bit smudged, probably written a few hours ago, maybe before they went to sleep, but the writing is neat enough to be read easily.

Jonghyun, surprisingly, can actually fall asleep that night just after he lays down in his soft bed. He feels happy that his soulmate finally acknowledged him.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 _“Maybe I should write something back this time, it has been a few weeks since I wrote anything,”_ Kibum thinks, after he’s laid down in his bed. His conscience has been getting to him already for not answering.

He looks at his watch. 9 pm.

Kibum considers that the last lines appeared overnight and takes one of the pens from the bedside table’s drawers. He decides that his soulmate will somehow see his answer until Kibum can wash it off in the morning and starts thinking of what to write. He can’t sound too nice as to not encourage his soulmate. He also can’t exactly be too mean, because that would probably only result in sappy messages for the next few weeks.

After a good half an hour of thinking Kibum decides on something that he hopes is something neutral. Something that will let his soulmate know that he’s appreciated, but that they need to tone it down a bit.

 

 

>                       **Cute. But please no more permanent marker. Thanks.**

 

Hoping for the best Kibum goes to sleep.

///

Kibum isn’t even a bit surprised to wake up to new words over the remnants of the old ones. He sort of expected that his message would be ignored.

Kibum scrunches up his eyebrows, reading the new words.

 

 

> **_(chorus)_ **
> 
> **_I take you to the moon_ **
> 
> **_I take you to the moon_ **
> 
> **_Tell me your secret_ **  
>  **Talk to me baby Talk to me baby**  
>  **Talk to me baby**  
>  **I’m getting dirty thoughts**  
>  **I’m ok with going even further**  
>  **Only to me**  
>  **Talk to me baby Talk to me baby**  
>  **Talk to me baby**

 

“Are those lyrics? And why are half of them English? What is he even suggesting oh my god…” Kibum mumbles in disbelief and reaches for his phone in hopes of maybe finding them on the internet.

After digging through what Kibum believes is probably the largest number of search engine pages he’s ever even considered to open, Kibum comes up with nothing.

In the end, he assumes that this might be some new lyrics and decides to look for them again in a few days. For now, though, he needs to find something to cover them with, because, honestly, these are the weirdest ones yet and he doesn’t want anyone seeing them.

Apart from the new words on his hand, Kibum’s day is uneventful. He goes grocery shopping just like every Saturday and just like every Saturday, he comes home, cooks and starts bingeing a new drama all the while chatting with his friends Minho and Taemin.

On Sunday evening Kibum scribbles something along the lines of “please stop” on his hand and goes to sleep early, having to wake up for work tomorrow. It’s not that he expects the other to stop, it’s just that he’s been doing that every other evening for a long time now (except for the two-week hiatus, when he ran out of pens and was too lazy to go buy them).

Old habits die hard.

///

When Kibum wakes up on Monday morning he doesn’t find any new lyrics or other words. He heaves a sigh of relief and heads for the shower to wash off what he’s written the night before.

Just as Kibum gets out of the shower, he sees something moving on his hand. Just beside the (rather embarrassing) words (which are still there, to his surprise) he got the day before yesterday. Weird.

Kibum’s never actually seen things being written down and has always thought that they just appear. But here he is, standing in the middle of his bathroom, as his soulmate is clearly drawing what seems like a stave and notes.

“Is that supposed to be for the lyrics?” Kibum murmurs.

He hasn’t sung for a long time. Not since high school. Well, he did a rap thing with the guys from the college choir he met through Taemin, but that’s a whole different story and he doesn’t exactly want to remember it.

Despite not having sung for a while he tries his best. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, since the notes are very high, but Kibum thinks it sounds nice.

The whole day at work Kibum can’t stop thinking about how the lyrics sounded coming from his mouth and wonders whether it sounds even better if his soulmate sings it. Are they a singer? A composer maybe?

He doesn’t give in to this moment of weakness (a.k.a. the moment he wants to write back something actually nice), though, so whilst standing in a particularly long line for coffee, he scribbles a short passive aggressive message to his soulmate:

 

 

>                  **Looks good. I especially appreciate the permanent marker; it totally shows you care :)**

 

Kibum has realised that he will fall for his soulmate if they continue to do this a long time ago, but only now does Kibum realise that he might not actually be bothered by it as much as he previously thought.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“Well you’re unusually cheery today,” Jonghyun hears Jinki say from the corner of the teachers’ room as he’s entering.

“I’ve got another response from my soulmate, and they said my lyrics are amazing,” Jonghyun states, a wide grin on his face.

“You’re kidding,” Jinki says blatantly, putting his phone down, where he’s probably been chatting with those friends of his.

Jonghyun quickly rolls up his sleeve to show Jinki his arm and rubs at the words his soulmate has written, to show Jinki that they don’t smudge at all (that’s because they’re not exactly on his skin but rather on his soulmate’s).

Jonghyun’s so focused on the fact that he got something back again he doesn’t even notice the tone to the message.

They spend the rest of the break discussing their soulmates and how Jinki met his soulmate, before Jonghyun has to go back to teach another class.

He and Jinki had been friends only for a year or so. When Jonghyun started working at the school, at first, they hadn’t even noticed each other. As a matter of fact, they didn’t even meet at the school. They met a few months after Jonghyun started working, when Jinki approached him after a performance at Krystal’s bar, complimenting his vocals. After talking for a while they’ve established that they work in the same school and live only a few blocks away from each other. Since then they’ve been pretty good friends.

“Do you think we’ll just be friends or could we maybe be a couple after we meet? My soulmate and I, I mean,” Jonghyun asks Jinki, when they’re finally leaving after work.

“Depends. I know you’d like to have a romantic relationship with him, but it’s really fulfilling to only be friends with your soulmate too. I mean look at me and Minho,” Jinki simply says, heading for his car, “If it makes you feel any better, though, most people do get into romantic relationships with their soulmates.”

“Yeah but you're aro, plus, what if I never meet them?” Jonghyun whines. It’s pretty apparent that this topic has bothered him for a while.

“You’ll meet him, you’ll see. Anyway, I have to go now, I have dinner with my friends,” Jinki smiles knowingly and gets into his car.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“Could you at least not work when we’re having our weekly dinner. It’s pretty rude,” Minho says, chewing on his steak.

Kibum was already friends with Minho when he met Taemin and Jongin in Modern Dance Society in college and they clicked instantly. The weekly dinner was first just an excuse to save money, they always took turns on who was cooking too, so all of them didn’t have to cook at the same time, overcrowding the small shared kitchen. Later on, after college, it turned into a way to catch up on their daily lives. They’ve been doing this ever since, Jinki joining them somewhere along the way.

“But this project is killing me,” Kibum whines and plops his head on his laptop’s keyboard, “I’m not sure how I’ll manage to finish it by the conference on Friday,” the sound of Kibum’s voice is muffled by the fact that his face has now slid down to be tightly pressed to the table (so he doesn’t ruin his keyboard, hitting it with his head).

“You should at least try the food Taemin made, though. It’s your recipe after all,” Jongin says, stuffing his face with that weird potato salad straight from the bowl.

“Tell you what, if your presentation in the conference goes well, there is this really nice bar down by Taemin’s studio, we meet there on Friday and the drinks are on me. Just, please, eat now,” Jinki says, a kind smile on his face.

Everyone agrees to the idea and Kibum sighs, putting his laptop away for later. What they don’t know, however, is that Jinki has long since been waiting for the right time to get Kibum to that specific bar on a Friday. You see, having heard Kibum’s complains the first day he met him, Jinki quickly deduced that, yep, that is definitely Jonghyun’s soulmate. He wasn’t going to just introduce them to each other, though. Oh no. He wanted it to be ‘by chance’, so he had to wait patiently and pretend like he didn’t know anything.

///

Kibum comes home at nearly midnight. Exhausted after a whole day of work and dinner with his friends, Kibum just flops face first onto his bed and falls asleep almost instantly.

///

The whole week is exhausting. Kibum’s working nights just so he can properly prepare for the presentation. He doesn’t even notice that there’s a new verse on Wednesday, but he would like to think he wouldn’t care either way.

Friday morning, the day of the presentation, Kibum wakes up to a loud banging on his flat door. Opening his eyes, he searches for his phone in his back pocket of the jeans he didn’t even bother taking off last night and looks at the time.

“FUCK!! SHIT!! I’M LATE!!”

“YEAH YOU ARE!” Kibum hears Minho’s voice just behind the door.

It’s already 12 p.m. and the conference starts at 2 p.m., so he scrambles up to unlock the flat door and then quickly get ready. He needs to be there at least at half past one for guest registration.

“I got worried, since your office door was locked, when I came for lunch,” Minho explains, entering and closing the door behind him.

“Can we carpool today?” Kibum yells from his bathroom as he tries to put his pants on.

That’s when he glimpses that something on his wrist changed. Besides now clearly different musical notes, there’s another few verses of what, Kibum thinks, is actually the same song. He blushes, it reads:

 

 

> **_(last verse)_ **  
>    
>  _**I’m gonna do what I want, even if you say no**_  
>  _**In the end, your lips will be on top of my cheek**_
> 
> **_Get rid of all your useless thoughts  
>  Don’t act like you’re timid, when you’re alone  
>  Tell me what you fantasized_ **
> 
> **_don’t open your eyes_ **

 

Why did he blush? It’s not supposed to be anything but annoying. It _is_ nothing but annoying.

“Hey, so are you getting ready or are you gonna stand around, looking at your wrist all day?” Minho suddenly says standing in the bathroom doorway.

“Right. Conference.” Kibum says, taking some hair gel and starting to style his hair into something more presentable.

Before leaving he also scribbles a quick:

 

 

>                       **Nice to be your notebook:))**

 

(Just so his soulmate understands he’s totally annoyed and doesn’t find this totally endearing. At all. Yep. It’s just annoying. That’s all there is to it.)

Kibum and Minho get to the conference hall just as the registration is about to close and take their seats.

“You’re really shaking,” Minho laughs.

“My palms are _so_ sweaty…” Kibum hesitates before continuing, “I hope I don’t faint when walking up there.”

“Want me to hold your hand and bring you up the stairs?” Minho asks, only partly joking.

“You know I’ll be fine, as always,” Kibum winks and takes his leave when they finally call his name to present the business plan.

Unsurprisingly, when Kibum steps on the stage, he looks incredibly confident and doesn’t even stutter once through the whole hour when he speaks, nor does he fail answering the other hour’s follow up questions about the plan.

When Kibum finally plops down on the chair beside Minho, he couldn’t be more mentally drained.

“You were good. Totally getting a raise after this,” Minho comments.

“They’d better give me a raise. I’ve never had a presentation as hard as this before,” Kibum says, crossing his arms.

Neither of them actually pay attention to the rest of the conference and everyone’s relieved when it finally ends at 7 o’clock.

“Jinki said he, Taemin and Jongin’ll be waiting for us at the bar. Do you want to go now or do you think we need to dress down a bit?” Minho asks, as they’re leaving the conference hall.

“We should definitely dress more casually if we’re going to a bar,” Kibum says and they head to his house.

After Kibum squeezes into the skinniest ripped jeans he could find in his closet and only rolls the sleeves of the dress shirt he has on, they leave for the bar (not, of course, before going to Minho’s too, so he can change into something more comfortable).

“Hey, guys, we’ve been waiting for you!” Taemin says with a wide smile, as he sees Minho and Kibum approach the bar.

“Yeah. You just missed Jinki’s friend, though,” Jongin states, “He’s gone to prepare for his gig, so you can meet him later, I guess,” Jongin smirks and winks at Kibum.

They order beers and move to a table closer to the stage.

“Jonghyun really helps the sales here. He has a great voice and he’s very nice, you’re totally gonna like --”

“Speaking of the devil,” Jinki says, interrupting Minho and smiling that wide smile of his.

The stage lights up and a short man there catches Kibum’s attention. He’s beautiful; dark brown hair, the biggest, most beautiful eyes and plump pink lips.

The man smiles and Kibum can’t take his eyes off of him. He can see why he’s popular.

“Hello, everyone,” Kibum melts at the sound of the soft unsure voice, screw his soulmate this is the guy he wants.

“My name’s Jonghyun, for the ones who didn’t know yet, and behind me is the band I usually play with here. They call themselves Super Junior,” he lets out an awkward giggle but still somehow manages to sound pretentious. Kibum would hate that if not for the man’s gorgeous smile.

Jonghyun says a few more words before starting with his regular repertoire of six songs. Kibum can swear he’s never heard a voice as amazing as Jonghyun’s. It’s so soft. Sensual even. Kibum feels as if he’s in some kind of trance, he can’t take his eyes of the man on the stage.

“This next song… It’s a new song and I haven’t exactly _played_ it to anyone yet. It’s called ‘Moon’ and I hope you enjoy it even if the music for it is from a recording and not played live by the band, since I needed a lot of back vocals,” Jonghyun lets out another awkward giggle when he stops rambling (he isn’t the best speaker when it comes to presenting his own work) and the music starts.

Kibum hears a few ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ coming from the audience when Jonghyun starts singing and he himself feels his legs beginning to turn into jelly. Just as Kibum’s about to thank god that he’s sitting down, however, his whole body stiffens and his eyes grow wide.

He knows this chorus.

He knows these words.

He’s even sure that he knows which notes Jonghyun needs to hit for it to sound just right.

When another verse comes, Kibum takes a look at his wrist and his breathing completely stops. It’s the same. The words coming out of Jonghyun’s mouth are the same as the ones on Kibum’s wrist.

Jonghyun rolls up the sleeves of his shirt a bit, as if to prepare for the last chorus and that’s when Kibum wants to scream. There, on the same spot as on his own hand, he can see a few lines in red followed by one, thin, blue line.

That’s also when everything becomes clear. Kibum feels a range of emotions. Anger, stress, excitement, relief and, most importantly, betrayal. He isn’t ready for this.

“You knew, didn’t you,” he manages to force out through his teeth when the performance ends and people start to leave or go back to the bar.

“I might have,” Jinki answers with a shit eating grin as everyone else just stares at them rather questioningly (except for Minho, that asshole).

Someone moves in Kibum’s peripheral vision and he can clearly see Jonghyun getting dangerously closer.

“Hey, guys! What did you think of my new song?” Jonghyun asks when he finally approaches the group.

“It was amazing! Kibummie, here, found it especially astonishing,” Minho smiles and if Kibum didn’t know any better he would say the other’s smile is of someone who has good intentions.

“Really?! I’m glad you liked it, I haven’t shared it with anyone besides my soulmate until today,” Jonnghyun says, an excited sparkle in his eyes.

“FUCK YOU,” is all Kibum manages to say, his vision blurry, all of this being too much for him right now, before he stomps through his friends and then out the door to the street.

“I totally called it,” Minho says nonchalantly, getting everyone’s attention from the door.

“What did I do to that guy?” Jonghyun asks, confused.

“You wrote on his hand. With a permanent marker. You know, the regular things you do for your soulmate,” Jinki says, casually sipping what’s left of his beer as Jonghyun’s eyes go wide.

Krystal only catches a glimpse of Jonghyun’s back as he bolts through the door into the cool night air.

**Author's Note:**

> I really appreciate feedback, especially since English is not my first language, so if you see any errors please don't hesitate to comment or something :)
> 
> P.S. I hate ao3 editor because I never get the html right...


End file.
